Anniversary: Obama's Invasion of Congo on Inauguration Day

Two years ago, on January 20, 2009, Barack Obama, the U.S.A.'s first African American president, invaded the Democratic Republic of Congo, the heart of Africa, on his Inauguration Day.

Most Americans, including those who campaigned hardest for Obama, would have a hard time making sense of this, or of the military forces involved. Most would not recognize the acronyms of the Rwandan Defense Force (RDF), the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), the Ugandan People's Defense Force (UPDF), or the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). 

So, what sense does it make, to say that Barack Obama invaded Congo, the heart of Africa, on his Inauguration Day?  It makes sense because:

1)  On his Inauguration Day, Obama became the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces.

2)   The Rwandan and Ugandan armies serve as the U.S. military's proxies in Africa.

The only media outlet willing and able to produce something akin to a news report about this was the Assassinated Press, in "Obama Invades the Congo on Inauguration Day."

I had been a guest on the KPFA Radio Morning Show the day before Obama's Inauguration, where I had tried to explain that Reverend Rick Warren, a world class homophobe, and Obama's controversial pick to say his inaugural invocation, was not a benevolent presence in Africa, as reported by Team Obama in their attempts at damage control.  I later turned what I'd tried to explain into a video, "Imperial Evangelism."

But, I was so staggered by what happened the next day, during the Obama Inauguration, that I was unable to write about it for over a year and a half, not until October 1, 2010, when I wrote "Obama’s Congo moment: genocide, the U.N. report and Senate Bill 2125," an essay published first in the SF Bay View, then Global Research, the Black Star News, and The Newsline EA (East Africa).

Ugandan American Black Star News Editor Milton Allimadi, gave that report a more straightforward title:  "Congo Genocide: Obama Knows the Real Story."

Obama Inauguration on screen, Times Square,
New York City, January 20, 2009.
Photo:  Jeremy Gordon, Flckr

Today, two years after Obama's Inauguration Day, many of Obama's near fanatical 2008 supporters have turned away, calling him a disaster and searching for another candidate to step up and challenge him in the 2011 primary.   But, what more can we expect from presidential elections that now cost well over half a billion dollars?   The London Guardian reported, on October 23, that the Obama and McCain campaign costs were approaching $1 billion.

Though I myself felt psychologically battered by Obama fanatics by the end of the 2008 election, I can now hardly imagine a bigger waste of time than trying to knock Obama out of the Democratic primary in 2011.

Instead I would urge all those who campaigned for Obama, then turned away in disgust, to take some responsibility by reading Senate Bill 2125, the only Senate Bill that will ever bear Barack Obama's name alone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act of 2006. I explained why in my essay, "Obama’s Congo moment: Genocide, the U.N. report and Senate Bill 2125."

Obama did not have to invade Congo, the heart of Africa, on his Inauguration Day.   He does not have to continue, now, to ignore the UN Mapping Report, released October 1st, which documents our proxy armies' war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocidal civilian massacres in Congo.  Obama knows the truth about Congo; he knows that, as he wrote in his 2006 legislation, "the real and perceived presence of armed groups hostile to the Governments of Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi continue to serve as a major source of regional instability and an apparent pretext for continued interference in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by its neighbors [Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi]."

 

But, the full force of the national security state now surrounding Obama could not be more invested in Congo, the most lethal conflict since World War II, which might well be understood as the back end of "the war."

Big bombs drop out of jet fighter bombers and U.S. soldier die in the front end of the war in Afghanistan, and U.S. soldiers continue to die in Iraq, but in Congo, where our African proxies serve U.S. security state interests, rape and HIV seem to be the most lethal weapons.

Southern Africa's resources, and most of all Congo's, are essential to our military industries' ability to manufacture for war.   The war in Congo is, as I wrote, on March 11, 2009, in the San Francisco Bay View, war for the sake of war itself.

Children in Armed Conflict: Olara Otunnu speaks to KPFA and AfrobeatRadio

Acholi children in an Internally Displaced Persons 

(IDP) camp in Kitgum, in Northern Uganda. 

"They think that a refugee camp is home."  

-Ugandan human rights advocate and presidential candidate Olara Otunnu

Olara Otunnu, Ugandan lawyer,
human rights advocate, and
presidential candidate

KPFA Audio Archive URL:  http://goo.gl/sPhKA. 


KPFA Weekend News Anchor Cameron Jones:
Much of the world focuses on family and creating safe and loving environments for children during the holidays , but many of the world's children suffer extreme deprivation and abuse of their human rights.   Last night, on New Year's Eve, KPFA's Ann Garrison spoke today to Olara Otunnu, a Ugandan lawyer and human rights advocate, who has been President of the International Peace Academy, UN Under-Secretary General and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, and President of the LBL Foundation for Children based in New York City.

KPFA/Ann Garrison:
Olara Otunnu, internationally known advocate for human rights, and especially for children in armed conflict regions, returned to Uganda this year, to become the presidential candidate of the Uganda People's Congress, one of the country's leading opposition parties.  He  is running against Yoweri Museveni, Uganda's president for the past 24 years.  He spoke to KPFA from Uganda's capitol, Kampala.

KPFA:

Can you describe what the holidays have been like for children living in the world's armed conflict regions?

Olara Otunnu:

Well, millions of children who have been caught up in situations of war, they would be today not in homes, not with their families perhaps, but in camps for displaced persons, or for refugees.    Instead of having a feast and celebrating, they most likely would be anxious, afraid of what is to come.  They would be struggling and worrying about mere survival.   

Here in Uganda, a celebration of Christmas and New Year's is not very different, perhaps, from other parts of the world, here in the capitol, but that is not the case in the countryside, where there is extreme and humiliating poverty, and it certainly isn't the case elsewhere in the world, including in parts of Uganda, where children and families have suffered terribly from armed conflict.

KPFA:

Is there armed conflict in Uganda now or are children suffering the consequences of conflict which has subsided?

Olara Otunnu:

Acholiland, the homeland of Uganda's
indigenous Acholi people, in northern Uganda.
The Acholi also live in Southern Sudan.

Well, between 15 to 20 years, the northern part of Uganda, especially the Acholiland, it was sheer hell.   The government of Mr. Museveni herded two million people into 200 concentration camps, for the better part of 20 straight years, in such abominable conditions people were dying at a rate of one thousand, five hundred a week.  The society, the culture, the family structure, education systems; everything has been destroyed.   What was done in Northern Uganda by the Museveni regime is probably the most comprehensive genocide in recent times.  

But within Uganda, the concentration camps finally, for the most part, were dismantled last year.  But after 20 years in the concentration camps, the survivors are completely lost.  They're deeply traumatized.  The society is collapsed.  

KPFA:

What would you say to Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the American people about the support that our government has given to Yoweri Museveni since the Bush War which brought him to power? 

Olara:

It's a very painful issue.   The incredible support and sponsorship that democratic governments, in the West particularly, have provided to Museveni over 25 years, even as genocide was going on in Northern Uganda, even as we had torture chambers littered throughout the country, even as the level of plunder of Uganda, the level of corruption by Museveni, his family, his ministers is such as I've never seen anywhere before, even as Museveni invaded the Congo and plundered the Congo.   It's a matter which, I can only say, requires a lot of soul searching on the part of the West.  

KPFA:  

Olara Otunnu, thank you for speaking to KPFA.   

Olara Otunnu:

Thank you so much.  

KPFA:

A longer conversation with Olara Otunnu is available at AfrobeatRadio.net.  For Pacifica/KPFA Radio, I'm Ann Garrison.